A November 2009 Forrester Research report suggests that 80 percent of Americans won’t pay for online newspaper or magazine subscriptions. Your thoughts?
Among the things I’ve seen in the last year, that was the single dumbest analysis I’ve read. First of all it uses the term ‘pay wall,’ which I think is a 2007 term. We don’t use it. It implies you just put a wall up and you lose all your ad revenue. The numbers in that were completely wrong. It’s as if this guy’s living on another planet.
So this idea that only about 20 percent of Americans will pay for some form of online subscriptions seems wrong to you?
That’s the best news I’ve ever heard, because our model says The New York Times and every other publication you can think of will do fabulously if only 10 percent pay. Only 20 percent will pay, that’s like saying, ‘I have an idea to sell BMWs, but unfortunately only 20 percent of Americans will buy one.’ It’s absurd.
Does that mean that in a couple of years you see everyone paying for some online news content?
Yes, steadily more of it.
They have the right to charge for what ever they want and I have the right not to read it.
Compare and contrast the spread of free daily newspapers here in London. Lamentably poor content (partial exception: the Evening Standard). Eating away at the income and circulation of paid-for print newspapers. But the punters go for the free …
They would have to pay me to read their Leftist drivle! They continue to put Left Wing ideology ahead of profits, so their lack of journalistic integrity is leading to their demise. Subscriptions continue to decline (America is growing more conservative as they grow more liberal), so advertisement revenues continue to decline. I believe the phrase, “hoisted on their own petard”, aptly describes their situation.
[blockquote]Only 20 percent will pay, that’s like saying, ‘I have an idea to sell BMWs, but unfortunately only 20 percent of Americans will buy one.’ It’s absurd.[/blockquote] The N.Y. Times is a Yugo inhabiting the body of a BMW. Additionally, the Japanese are making better cars for less money.
Why pay to be continually annoyed and needled?
I don’t bother to read the NY Times now, so this will have no effect on me. I read it in college 35 years ago, but back then it was a real newspaper.
Ditto #1 through #6. All the news fit to wrap around dead fish.